Win Free Books with your Best Overdue Book Excuse

The dog ate my GOOSEBUMPS…THE GOBLET OF FIRE vanished into thin air on the bus …My little sister flushed RAMONA down the toilet.

Hello 2012! We’re kick-starting the new year with a fun contest. Give us your craziest overdue book excuse or lost book story and we’ll put you in the running for free PIRATES OF PLAGIARISM books. We’ll also publish the whoppers that are the funniest or strangest.

Contest details below:

*Email Kathleen kfox@librarygames.com with your stories or post a comment with your best overdue book excuse(s).

The strangest lost book story I have happened this fall. One of my students checked out her library books and the following day I received an email from a school in MD (about 45 minutes away from my school in VA) that one of our books had been returned to her school! Intrigued I checked the book’s record to see who had it checked out, the student in question was on vacation in EGYPT with his family and had been gone about 2 weeks! Some more digging around showed us that the book was actually checked out by another student in his class, so it was returned from Egypt, checked out in VA and lost in MD all in one day!
We think the book was actually here in the classroom, and that the second student checked it out before it was checked in, but we still have no clue how it got to MD! The student says she does not have family in the area it was found, and that she had not left her house the day it was lost. Maybe on the school bus?
The school librarian in MD and I would love to know how this book traveled so far in a day!
Luckily for me the other librarian took the time to track down a school she had never heard of, find my email address and offer to return our book! Gotta love our librarians!

My first year as a Media Specialist a student repeatedly ‘forgot’ his overdue book My Life in Dog Years by Gary Paulsen. When threatened with recess until he paid or returned the book, he brought in a mangled and chewed up mess. Yup, his dog ate the book about dogs.
Diane L. Creel-Media Specialist
Flower Hill ES, Gaithersburg, MD

My Sharks book went to Mexico. I don’t know when we’ll be going back. Apparently US Mail didn’t work. Eleven went to Texas, same issue with the mail, but 2 years later I did get it back…along with 2 more that her sister had given her to return.
Marcia Berbeza, Delaware

We had a third grader who just told us yesterday that, “I tried to my books up high, but my little sister is a monkey.”
Joan Rubin, PYE Librarian
Penn Yan Elementary School
Penn Yan, NY

“I didn’t lose the book. I left it at our family’s timeshare. I can get it and bring it back next year when we go, but my dad doesn’t want to pay for it because it isn’t technically lost.” (5th grader)

My best overdue excuse came when I was a librarian at an elementary school. A student walked in, handed me what my fingers immediately realized was a very damp book and said “I’m sorry my book is late but my little brother threw it in the toilet and I had to wait till it stopped dripping to bring it back because I didn’t want to get my backpack wet.”
The book went right into the trash and I washed my hands with lots of soap and energy (3 times!) but I didn’t charge the student’s account because it was the best laugh I’d had in years. Kids, you’ve got to love them!
-M. Goldsberry

Last year a 6th grader checked out 2 playaways to take on a spring break trip to El Salvador. His overdue/lost excuse (for losing $80 worth of library materials): “I finished listening to the books and didn’t want to carry them all the way back home in my suitcase!”
Sharon Frank, Librarian
Timber Lane Elementary School, VA

Oh What fun Kathleen!!!
The best excuse, and unfortunately my OWN, is as follows:
“My Labrador ate the cover off Toast with Jelly Side Up.”
Roberta Dwelley , MLIS/NBCT
Dunston Primary School- North Charleston, SC
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Hi Kathleen,
What a fun contest!
This is a little out of the realm of overdue books, but worth sharing nonetheless. Last year a student brought back a damaged book and said his younger brother had gotten a hold of it and wrecked it. I
sent home a note with the replacement cost and when the mom sent the money in, she also asked for a receipt. However, the receipt was not because she wanted proof of payment-she wrote a note saying she was going to put it in the younger brother’s baby book. :-)
Michelle Maniaci
Luther Elementary, WI

Here’s one of mine from this very week – “My friend put it in the recycle bin and it got recycled!”
Happy New Year!
Sarah Winn, Librarian- Churchill Road Elementary School, VA
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Kathleen,

The strangest excuse we ever got was from a girl whose book had been
missing for MONTHS. After several inquiries, she finally told us it was
in a cow pile in the field behind her house. She eventually found it in
her basement near the end of the year. It was returned in perfect
condition. The excuses from her brothers were not nearly as “creative”.
Peggy Simpson
MVES library teacher
Rockingham, VA
By working together
we help our students
become successful lifelong learners!

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My best overdue book excuse went as follows:

Me: Do you know where your book is?
Him: Yes, I left it in the bathroom.
Me: Bathroom?
Him: Yeah, I like to keep a book in the bathroom for…yanno…

I have never looked at the poor child the same way. I wash my hands a lot now…

Here’s an oldie, but goodie sent to our email address from Mary, a librarian in Virginia:

As I was preparing the Library in August of 2004 for the upcoming school year, I received a package from an unknown individual in suburban Maryland. When I opened it, the package contained a book: Galileo and Experimental Science. Attached to it was a routing slip with this message: “I just found this book. It belonged to you (years ago!) and was checked out by my ex-husband (years ago!). I thought you deserved to get it back!” The due date stamped in the back of the book read: “Nov. 16 ’66.”